For the benefit of those who doubt the opinions expressed above:
I understand that with this being an anonymous forum, so data can be hard to verify, but for those who know people... ask around.
Which units are getting anything like enough hours in the air to be even half competent?
Reds: Probably.
Front line Typhoon and Tornado, including QRA: nothing like it.
Phenom: Who knows, given the shortage of airframes, and the flying needed to get their QFIs (the ones who haven't yet left) to the standard, what the long term picture is?
Transport & Tanking: Apparently some, but some of them are civvies, the rest of them are run into the ground on ops. The A400 pilots were struggling to achieve 200hours/annum. Not sure if this is still the case?
Hawk T2: No, advanced high tech sims are not the same thing. Great for as well as, but not instead of. I hear the convex for QFIs is taking well in excess of 12 months, at a very slow rate. Output rate, albeit with some overseas customers to satisfy, is blocking up a 2 year plus hold for baby pilots with no likely refresher. 'Downloading' training needlessly from Typhoon, and pilots lacking basic fast jet handling skills.
Hawk T1: No idea, but they seem busy enough.
ISTAR: No idea, but imagine RJ and E3D crews must be struggling, due to high unserviceability rates.
Rotary: Training; Students are flying, and Instructors are doing an awful lot fewer (P1) hours in the air than they used to. Ops; Previously flown to exhaustion, which is as bad as not flying enough. Now showing large reductions.
Prefect: Too early to say, but probably not. Have they resolved the over torque issues yet? That's not exactly care free handling.
Texan: Ask me in 2019, when it just might have permission to fly in the UK.
Air Cadets: Don't make me laugh.
If standards haven't dropped, why is it that Air Command now say that "flight training is now to be to an acceptable minimum standard at the cheapest contractual price"? The previously used term "excellence" has been dropped.
That looks to me, as if even 22 Group have decide to settle for less.